Few plants show up on the table in as many forms as the soybean. This hairy legume has been an important component of various foods and drugs in asia for over 5,000 years. In that time, it has been squeezed, pressed, boiled and engineered into soymilk, tofu, edamame, sprouts, flour, or vegetarian cheeses. Soybean oils [...]

San Diego is an urban paradise. Temperatures are always comfortable, the sun shines most days of the year, and locals can spend any day enjoying their time at beaches, museums, zoos, stadiums or any number of shows that occur there. The San Diego Convention center is always booked with events ranging from tech conferences to [...]

Most of the trash that accumulates so quickly is made up of packaging. This makes sense when every item at the grocery store, every new piece of equipment and every toy is safely encased in the cardboard boxes we have gotten so accustomed to. The Integrated Waste Management Board states that of all the solid [...]

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capitol, has slowly transformed into a sprawling city over the years, full of silver skyscrapers and modern buildings. The city is home to over 5 million inhabitants and bears little resemblance to the land that used to be covered with date trees and orchards. Riyadh roughly translates to “garden” in Arabic and [...]

Cities are hot: Filled with skyscrapers, traffic and hot pavement, heat simmers between buildings causing the “heat island effect”. Stagnant heat is trapped in the narrow city gaps and air conditioners cooling the inside of buildings spill even more heat out the walls. Trees offering natural cooling and shade are minimal and soil that helps [...]

The great mosque of Djenne looms over one of the larger marketplaces in Mali, Africa. On the flat brown flood planes, mud walls up to 24 inches thick bear the weight of what looks like a giant sand castle. Protruding from the structure are carefully placed wooden poles and ostrich eggs adorn the tips of [...]